indulgent breakfast cake ideas

This is an old favorite -- the instructions were written for a teenaged girl in Europe who's mom had a smallish food processor, and who had never made a cake before; please forgive the style. If you don't have a food processor, rub the butter into the flour/sugar mix like you're making biscuits. If you have a normal sized food processor you can mix the entire cake in it.

German Coffee (Spice) Cake


This recipe came from the German ladies who cooked at a school called “John F. Kennedy Preparatory School” in the tiny town of St. Nazianz, Wisconsin. The co-ed, non-denominational school had been a seminary, and still served as the retirement home for the Catholic Salvatorian priests and monks. Odd mix of people on the campus! Like all teens, we complained bitterly about the food, but we all cheered up when this cake was served. I talked the ladies into sharing the recipe – my mother figured out how to reduce the quantities into a family-sized version. This is the result – enjoy!

Grease a 13 x 9inch baking pan with butter or a flavorless oil. If you want, you can use parchment paper to line the pan.

Make sure the oven rank is in the middle of the oven.

Heat the oven to 350/170

Ingredients

Flour (Regular flour or cake flour) 3 cups (400 grams)

White Sugar 1 cup (200 grams)

Brown Sugar 1 cup (200 grams) Note: You can use all brown sugar.

Butter 8oz MUST be cold (200 grams)

Put the flour in the food processor.



Cut the butter into big chunks and throw it on top of the flour. If there’s room in the processor, add both sugars.



Pulse the machine on and off until the butter is broken up into small pieces. They don’t have to be all the same size, but none bigger than a small pea.



Pour the flour/butter mixture into a bowl and if necessary, stir in the sugars using the dough whisk or a big fork.


Important: Remove 1 cup of the mixture and set it aside. This is the topping for the cake.


Baking Powder: 1 teaspoon

Baking Soda: 1 teaspoon

Cinnamon 1 teaspoon

Other spices – total of 1 teaspoon (Nutmeg, allspice, cloves, cardamom – at least two of these -- OR a teaspoon of fragrant garam masala.)

Salt 1 teaspoon

Whisk the dry ingredients into the flour/butter/sugar mixture until everything’s evenly distributed.



Mix together:


Milk (soured) or Buttermilk 8oz (200 grams) Note: If you don’t have buttermilk, pour a table spoon of vinegar into a measuring cup and fill with regular milk to the 8oz/200g mark. Let it sit for 10 minutes or so. If you DO have buttermilk, reduce the bicarbonate de sodium to ½ teaspoon.

Eggs 3

Vanilla 1 teaspoon

Stir the milk/eggs/vanilla into the flour/butter/etc with the dough whisk or the large fork just until there are no more streaks of flour visible. Do not homogenize the batter - a gentle touch is needed here, so you don’t work up the gluten in the flour. Stir, don’t beat.


Scrape the batter into the pan. Sprinkle the reserved topping over the cake as evenly as possible.


Place on the rack, and set a timer for 30 minutes.



The cake probably won’t be done yet, but may need to be covered loosely with a sheet of aluminum foil if it’s getting too brown. Just lay the foil on top.



Check every five minutes after that. The cake is done when a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean, or with just a crumb or two sticking to it.





Notes:



This cake is a bit fragile in the oven because of the mixing method – it’s not a typical butter cake where the eggs or butter/sugar are beaten at high speed to help the leavening, and the structure doesn’t set up as quickly. In other words, if you lift it out of the oven to test it, be gently – don’t plunk it on the counter or back in the oven!



Other pans: 2 round 8” pans; one loaf pan, or 12 cupcake molds. The timing may be shorter, so start checking around 20 minutes.

This isn't quite coffee cake, but beesting cake was one of my favorite things at the bakery I worked at and it definitely made a good, indulgent breakfast. It's a not-too-sweet yeasted cake filled with pastry cream and topped with sliced almonds and honey. Smitten has a good recipe: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2013/04/bee-sting-cake/

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/sour-cream-coffee-cake-recipe.html

http://www.marthastewart.com/355763/new-york-crumb-cake?czone=food%2Fbrunch-center%2Fbrunch-baked-sweets&gallery=275201&slide=355763¢er=276953

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/05/cakespy-crumb-cake-recipe.html

Google. Gooey Butter cake a St Louis tradition its decadent and awesome

This is one of my favorite Sunday breakfast cakes:
http://thesolitarycook.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/elaines-italian-lemon-cake/

To serve alongside it, soften some cream cheese by letting it sit out overnight. In the morning, while the cake is baking, whip the cream cheese with a generous amount of honey. Have a lovely Mother's Day.

This rhubarb ginger cake is delicious, and when I made it I thought it would be really ideal as a breakfast cake:
http://food52.com/recipes/22207-cory-schreiber-julie-richardson-s-rhubarb-buckle-with-ginger-crumb